Sunday, October 15, 2006

Brown Widow #1

Yesterday I was called out to my backyard by Derek. He said, "look there's a black widow under this chair". As we proceed to kill it we find 9 egg sacs. However during Derek's momentary absence, the widow hid. We had no choice but to sink the giant deck chair inside my pool, that way we would not only kill the hiding widow but her precious egg sacs too...hahhaha....

We then sink a pair of shorts that we suspect the mother widow could be hiding in. I then go to swish it around and see this enormous brown spider with the shape of a black widow. Huh? Weird. So we kill it without fully seeing it's belly, but we know black widows are black, so no worries.

That's what I think, I pull out the chair this morning and see all the egg sacs in tact but assume they are all but lively little spiders, I then check closely in the crevices of the chair and see another brown spider! What the deuce! This time is different though, I have the option of looking at this hopefully drowned and dead brown spider from 2 angles. I walk around the chair bend down and gaze at this gross spider only to see.......

an hourglass!Are you kidding me???? So I run inside and call my brother telling him for sure it's a white widow. He tells me to get a vile from his desk and preserve it. Are you kidding me again???? NO WAY!!! I mean it might be dead from the 24 hour submerging, but still, one cannot be so sure! So I do only what I can, I go on the internet. I wikipedia "white widow spider" but realize that these spiders do not bear the mark of the hourglass. I then use the links to various other widow spiders and come upon the "Brown Widow Spider".expert from wikipedia: "Like all Latrodectus species, L. geometricus has a bite which is venomous to humans; unfortunately, according to Dr. G.B. Edwards, a University of Florida arachnologist, the brown widow venom is twice as potent as the black widow venom, but is usually confined to the bite area and surrounding tissue, as opposed to the Black Widow."I have not an expert's opinion yet but I saw what I saw! Wikipedia says it's usually only in Florida, Mississippi and Texas. Hopefully my brother will capture, preserve and get it analyzed at the lab. Until then we can only wait.